Without comment, the high court let stand a lower court opinion denying the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court records connected to the phone and Internet monitoring of Adel Daoud. The 21-year-old denies he pressed the trigger of what he thought was a real bomb outside a Chicago bar as part of an FBI sting operation. His lawyers said the records were necessary to mount a defense during the defendant's upcoming federal terror trial.

"Without access to FISA materials, it is virtually impossible for defendants to challenge the lawfulness of the government's surveillance of them," according to the Daoud petition the justices rejected reviewing Monday.

Last year, a federal appeals court in Chicago reversed a decision by the nation's first trial judge to order the government to produce such materials. But the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the government's position that exposing the secret FISA court records would harm the nation's security.

"Our own study of the classified material has convinced us that there are indeed compelling reasons" to keep the records from the defense, the appellate court opinion said. Daoud appealed to the Supreme Court.

The FISA court gained fresh public attention in June 2013 when the first leaks by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden began surfacing. Among the revelations, they included a FISA court opinion allowing the NSA to secretly scoop up the metadata of phone calls made to and from the United States.

While the appeals court in the Daoud case refused to release records relating to Daoud's surveillance, the appellate court nevertheless said the surveillance was conducted lawfully.

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David Kravets
The senior editor for Ars Technica. Founder of TYDN fake news site. Technologist. Political scientist. Humorist. Dad of two boys. Been doing journalism for so long I remember manual typewriters with real paper. Emaildavid.kravets@arstechnica.com//Twitter@dmkravets